Everything you need to know about running and life and any other random crap I find bouncing through my mind like a ping pong ball. And always be sure your shoes are happy.

Archive for the month “December, 2013”

Good cheery sunny wintry day, my friends, Boy and Girl, I know you’ve been bereft and probably devastated at the dearth of chatter over here at rundogcatcatme. I’ve missed you both terribly, I thought of you at least twice in the past three weeks or so and by this you can tell that I am very torn up.

Chunker is currently hauling her poor ratty baby (formerly some fuzzy squeaky toy) around, mewing at it as though it will somehow animate and become the baby her un-baby-making body is apparently yearning for. Who knows why, maybe she has some hormones still hanging around? Years ago I had a cat whose ovaries grew back. What the hell?? I asked the vet, can she get pregnant?!? He rolled his eyes slightly; pointing out that her uterus no longer existed even if the ovaries were trying to make a comeback. Well, the damn ovaries are growing back, how do I know the missing uterus might not suddenly become sentient and return to sender? For the rest of her life, several times a year, she hauled her little babies around for a week or so, mewing sadly. Just as Chunker, she was a poor mother, leaving the helpless and hapless babies strewn about the house in high traffic areas, ready to be stomped deader.

Chunk and (soon to be abandoned on the stairs so I can nearly break my neck trying to avoid slipping on it) Baby

Speaking of slipping on the stairs and not breaking my neck, that is exactly what I did a week and a half ago, and I’m still hurting and still have a good-sized bruise for the experience. Suddenly I wish we had carpeted the stairs. The one thing I’ve been most worried and cautious about – and of course it happened. Why did I not spend all that effort worrying I would win the lottery, if that’s how the gods are going to handle my life? Just as I got to a point that my foot was mostly pain-free I returned to constant pain – the first couple nights it hurt so much that I woke every time I turned (or tried to turn) over. I managed to land on two treads at once so mid-back to upper hip were one large pain fest. But, hey – sh*t happens, right?

The first of December, bored out of my un-exercising mind and needing something to focus on (not that I’m OCD, I just have a one-track mind at times which, oddly, Hubs pronounces “stubborn”) I had the brilliant idea of knitting scarves for some of my progeny. Five, in fact. Five 7-foot long scarves. Hey, easy breezy, right? Four-five hours per scarf, gives me something to do in the evenings while repeatedly scanning 573 channels for something – please Baby Jesus, anything – to watch on TV, an effort I quickly abandoned and set myself up, instead, in front of Netflix where I watched three seasons of Chuck, finally surrendering even that attempt because my match-maker heart could no longer stand the ever-dangling relationship with Sarah. Unfortunately it turned out it was more like 10-12 hours per scarf but I’ll be damned, I started it, I’m finishing it, so my life faded into a tunnel-visioned knit 2 purl 2 with some life crammed in around the edges trying to get ready for Christmas.

While getting ready for the holiday was a bit of a rush, the week of Christmas was great as we did something we’ve never done: the entire family met in Gatlinburg for the week, except for number 1 son and our great new daughter-in-law, whose work schedules prevented them from coming. We had a 4-1/2 bedroom cabin in the mountains outside Gatlinburg, beautiful views of fog covered ridges; Christmas Eve it snowed a bit and we woke Christmas morning surrounded by snow frosted mountains. We’d agreed no gifts except for the B’ster and did Dirty Santa instead, although as mom I felt compelled to give a few little gifts such as the aforementioned marathon scarf knitting. Later that morning we hiked, even the B’ster and I were able to go along for a couple miles of easy trails to a waterfall and an abandoned cabin.

Thanks to T-1’s girlfriend I have become a jigsaw puzzle convert and while I am not OCD I did spend several hours peering through my trifocals at the brightly colored shapes, feeling a bit like a little kid getting a piece of candy every time I managed to complete a section. Very self-rewarding, at least for a while. I brought along knitting, Christmas cards, two books and several movies as though I were going to have time for all that; I managed to knit about six inches of an attempt at a boot cuff, read three paragraphs one night before collapsing into a dreamless sleep, and the only movies we watched were B’sters – which were more fun anyway. We played games, hiked, shopped, went site-seeing and ate about every 3 hours. It was perfect.

Yesterday morning we woke bright and early, the twins and girlfriend were heading back to Chicago; T-2 will spend the week there and fly back to NYC January 1st. I watched them drive away, tears rolling down my cheeks, my heart and my heart driving down the road. Everything changes, everything stays the same.

Well, Boy and Girl, this is my 200th post. You’ve both been very faithful supporters. You repeatedly encouraged me to blog; when I did you were my first two followers, and I thank you. Everyone else wishes you’d kept your mouths shut and I will not use your real names to protect you, but thank you both, “Hermione” and “Sylvester”. Somehow 712 people have chosen to follow this nannering, wandering blog, I thank you all also and sincerely apologize for all the lost hours and brain cells.

Things that did not happen yesterday:

1. The tree is still not decorated although it’s fluffed and has a few shiny things hanging on it. This time it’s because I can’t decide the best way to keep the cats from declaring it their new home and then redecorating it to suit their tastes, which is all the balls knocked off onto the floor. I don’t like that look. It’s…crunchy. The vacuum doesn’t like it either, apparently and to my regret.

2. My foot was not miraculously healed. This made my very devout mother sad. You’d think after all these years she would give up, but, no. She’s absolutely convinced that at some point she is going to pray someone out of something. Who knows? She very well may have already, because I figure if she did then we would not know because they would have gotten prayed out of it. My question is, what does God do up there, have a stopwatch and an excel spreadsheet? “Okay, then, Sally beat Janie by .37 second on the praying for rain/praying for no rain, toughski shitzki, Janie, it’s going to rain on your wedding. Pray faster next time, and also I will put you in the lose column and you’ll get a 3 second advantage on the next prayer.”

If either of you two faithful followers are still following after reading that blasphemy you should probably at least climb under your desk to continue.

This means that Dr. Awesome v.2 made my mom sad. I should have pointed this out to him, but I expect he would still not have changed his mind.

In fact, I did sort of point it out. I told him that he had not read the script correctly; his line was supposed to be, “WOW. I made a mistake. Your foot is not broken at all, I’m SO sorry.”

I would have been the bigger person here, too, and I would not have gotten upset. I would be all magnanimous and wave my hand slightly – “oh it’s nothing, I’m sure it happens.”

But, no. No healing. Four more weeks and see him again. And you know what? I suspect that he is a very suspicious man. He doesn’t seem to trust me and I have no idea why. Rather like Hubs thinking I would not wear the boot. Cynical, even.

Would this conversation make you suspicious that someone was suspicious about you?

Dr. A v.2: “See me in four more weeks. Call me in two weeks.”

Me: “Um, OK, why?”

Dr. A v.2: “So I can talk you down.”

Me: (Innocent) “What? You don’t trust me?”

Dr. A v.2: “You’re a runner. I know what you will be thinking two weeks from now when your foot doesn’t hurt so much anymore. Call me and I’ll talk you down.”

Despite laying everything out in the den and giving clear instructions, the Christmas tree did not fluff and decorate itself.

The clothes did not march downstairs, jump in the washer and then the dryer and return to their original starting positions.

Nor did the dishes do anything similar.

And the bed stubbornly refuses to make itself even thought I’ve repeatedly encouraged it.

The good thing is that everything I do takes half again as long while I lurch slowly up and down stairs, dragging three extra pounds around on my left foot. This gives me hope that the extra time and weight will keep me fairly fit for the rest of my life since that’s how long it feels I will be in this boot. I do see Dr. Wonderful 2 this morning so more on that later. Personally I’m planning on him smacking himself in the forehead and exclaiming OMGOSH IT’S A MIRACLE YOU’VE BEEN HEALED, GO FOR A NICE LONG RUN! and you cannot convince me otherwise even with my foot still swollen and tender. That’s just residue from the miracle.

Between 7-1/2 hours spent sitting in front my computer this weekend watching online modules so I can take a test to become a Certified Race Director (learning many important things such as runners should be able to see the START banner) whenever I realized I could no longer feel my butt – which (segue) by the way, has not tried to fall off once since I broke my foot. Coincidence? I think not. I lean toward a conspiracy. But more on that later, I’m still trying to figure it out and they know I’m sticking close, watching them –

Anyway, whenever I realized I could no longer feel my butt, sitting here peering blindly at the computer trying to find the sweet spot in my trifocals, I paused the video and did some laundry or washed dishes or something. I know, I’m wild and crazy but there is no stopping me. And I’ve decided that probably the tree could decorate itself but it’s just being helpful by giving me something to do, lurching about fluffing branches and trying in vain to kneel down on this boot to reach the lower branches, burn some calories there, Terri, get that HR up a bit.

So – ShuBootAh is being helpful too, making extra work for me. OH – and – she is hot and I don’t mean whoa she’s fine. That sucker holds the heat. So I’m saving money on utilities also.

I have to say, I’m really pleased with all this positive thinking I have going on. Most of the time I’m a bit cynical, but this morning I’m practically glowing with positivity.

You know who’s cynical even though they say they aren’t? Hubs. Hubs is cynical and you cannot convince me otherwise because I’ve seen his cynical eyeball roll about 1,237,698 times, and I think 1,237,657 of those were caused by me.

The other day he watched silently as I put ShuBootAh back on (I’d taken her off to get a break, putting my foot up for a minute). I looked at him from the corner of my eye.

“You thought I would not wear the boot like I should, didn’t you?”

He hesitated. “I have to say, you are doing much better than I expected.”

Number of days in ShuBootAh: 18

Number of times I’ve thrown her across the room narrowly missing poor Murphy: 1